Ladder for Booker T. Washington, 1996
Martin Puryear (1941–)
Ladder for Booker T. Washington, 1996
Wood (ash and maple); (432 x 22 ¾ in, narrowing at the top to 1 ¼ x 3 in.)
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
Source: Educator Resource Book, Picturing America, pp. 88-89.
http://picturingamerica.neh.gov/downloads/pdfs/Resource_Guide_Chapters/PictAmer_Resource_Book_Chapter_20B.pdf
MARTIN PURYEAR [1941–]
20b
Ladder for Booker T. Washington, 1996
The titles of Martin Puryear’s sculptures might best be considered as metaphors that expand rather than limit the meaning
of his works, which are spare, carefully crafted, evocative, and
profound. Like poetry, much is lost in the interpretation. When
his sculptures are titled after historic people, it is especially easy
to misread them. In Ladder for Booker T. Washington, Puryear
chose the title only after he had completed the sculpture. To
think of the title as a frame for the sculpture would be backwards.
Puryear’s Ladder reflects handcraft techniques he honed abroad
while studying in West Africa and in Scandinavia. The side rails,
polished strands of wood, are fashioned from a golden ash
sapling that once grew on Puryear’s upstate New York property; and the ladder’s now sinuous, now sharp, rails, connected
by round, lattice-like rungs that swell in the middle, reflect the
wood’s organic cycle of growth and change. Puryear says that
he “forced” the perspective of the ladder. Although the rungs
begin at a respectable 113⁄4 inches wide at the bottom, the distance between them diminishes as they climb upward thirty-six
feet. Their span narrows to a dizzying 11⁄4 inches at the top of
the ladder, giving the illusion of much greater height. Suspended
about three feet above the floor and anchored to its surroundings by almost undetectable wires, Ladder seems to float
precariously in space.
Like Puryear’s sculpture, the legacy of the man for whom it was
named is open to interpretation. Booker T. Washington, an
eminent but controversial leader of the African American community, was born into slavery in the Piedmont region of Virginia
around 1856. At the age of twenty-five he rose to prominence
as the founder and first president of Tuskegee Institute in
Alabama. In the years following Reconstruction, the promised
gains for African Americans were slipping away, and as
an educator, Washington insisted that blacks be skilled both vocationally and intellectually: “When the student is through with his
course of training, he [should go] out feeling that it is just as
honorable to labor with the hands as with the head.” At
Tuskegee, the curriculum was founded on the tenet that work
in all its manifestations was “dignified and beautiful.”
Under Washington’s guidance, Tuskegee became a successful
and respected institution, and Washington himself was revered
by many blacks and whites. However, his stand on civil rights
was highly criticized by other African American leaders, such as
W. E. B. DuBois, as being subservient. Washington thought that
blacks need not campaign for the vote. The goal as he saw it
was to establish economic independence before demanding
civic equality, even if that meant using white assistance. He
drew on his own life experience, recounted in his autobiography Up from Slavery, to exemplify his conviction that hard work
would be sufficient to propel African Americans to success
and acceptance. Although Washington quietly supported antisegregation, he did not speak out openly against racism until
the end of his life.
Puryear has used the concept of a ladder not easily ascended
more than once — most spectacularly in an eighty-five-foot
cedar and muslin spiral staircase created in a Paris church in
1998 – 1999. This artistic metaphor dovetails seamlessly with
the contradictions inherent in the often contentious legacy of
Booker T. Washington. The association of ladders with ambition, transcendence, danger, faith, and salvation, deeply woven
into the Judeo-Christian tradition, was certainly a vital part of
the educational leader’s life. The title of Washington’s autobiography Up from Slavery is a direct reference to an ascent to
a richer existence, both materially and psychologically. The
spiritual “We Are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder” was one of
Washington’s favorites (it was also sung by the Freedom
Marchers from Selma to Birmingham, see 19-B).
20-B Martin Puryear (1941 – ), Ladder for Booker T. Washington,
1996. Wood (ash and maple), 432 x 223⁄4 in., narrowing at the top
to 11⁄4 in. x 3 in. (1097.28 x 57.785 cm., narrowing to 3.175 x
7.6 cm.). Collection of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth,
Gift of Ruth Carter Stevenson, by Exchange.
88
Puryear’s finely crafted ladder resonates with Washington’s
belief in the dignity of manual labor expertly accomplished. But
the artist leaves the final explanation of his construction open.
As critic Michael Brenson has stated, “Puryear has the ability to
make sculpture that is known by the body before it is articulated
by the mind.”
PICTURING AMERICA ARTWORK, ESSAYS, AND ACTIVITIES
DESCRIBE AND
ANALYZE
Encourage students to look carefully at this sculpture,
noting where it begins and where it ends.
E|M
What is this object?
It is a ladder.
How is it different from most ladders?
It curves and gets narrower at the top.
E|M|S
Have students describe the side rails and rungs of this ladder.
The side rails are crooked, like the organic shape of the trees from which they were made. The rungs are thicker in the middle.
The whole ladder is polished and assembled with fine craftsmanship.
E|M|S
What does this ladder rest on?
It does not stand on the floor. It is suspended from the ceiling and held in place by very fine wires. It seems to float about two and
one-half feet above the floor.
Ask students if they can see the wires holding it in place. Notice the shadows created by the ladder.
M|S
Ask students what illusion Puryear creates by making the ladder narrower at the top than bottom.
It makes it seem even taller than it is.
Remind them of the African American spiritual “We Are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder.” Does this ladder seem tall enough to
reach to the heavens?
INTERPRET
E|M|S
Ask students if they think the ladder would be difficult to climb and why.
It would be very difficult because it is long and curving and it gets very narrow at the top.
E|M|S
Discuss with students what ladders can symbolize. Remind them of phrases like “climbing the ladder to success” and
“getting to the top.” Call attention to the title of this sculpture, Ladder for Booker T. Washington. The title of Washington’s
autobiography was Up from Slavery. Ask why this ladder is an appropriate symbol for this title. (Students should
understand that the climb from slavery to attaining equal civil rights was as difficult as it would be to climb this ladder.)
M|S
How does the fine craftsmanship of this ladder represent some of Washington’s beliefs?
In addition to intellectual skills, Washington believed that students should learn manual skills, like the woodworking represented
by this ladder, in order to support themselves.
teaching activities
TEACHING ACTIVITIES
E = ELEMENTARY| M = MIDDLE |S = SECONDARY
M|S
Where does the ladder lead?
It leads to the light.
What might the fact that the ladder is raised off the ground symbolize?
You have to pull yourself up to the place where the ladder starts.
Have students discuss how a person might climb this ladder to success, and where it might lead.
CONNECTIONS
Historical Connections: slavery;
Reconstruction; civil rights; PanAfricanism
Historical Figures: Booker T.
Washington; W. E. B. DuBois
Civics: Fifteenth Amendment; Voting
Rights Act of 1965
Literary Connections and Primary
Documents: Roll of Thunder, Hear my
Emancipation Proclamation (1863),
Abraham Lincoln (elementary, middle)
Cry, Mildred D. Taylor (middle); Up
from Slavery, Booker T. Washington
(secondary); Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
(secondary); Atlanta Address of 1895,
Booker T. Washington (secondary);
Arts: abstract art
L A D D E R F O R B O O K E R T. WA S H I N GT O N , 19 9 6 , M A RT I N P U RY E A R [1941–]
89
Art21 . Martin Puryear . Interview & Videos | PBS
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Abstraction & “Ladder for Booker T.
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about
BIOGRAPHY
INTERVIEW: Stone Carving
INTERVIEW: Abstraction & “Ladder for
Booker T. Washington”
ART:21:
Your work is often talked about as coming out of the history of
abstraction. Can you talk about your connection to that history?
PURYEAR:
I think the way I work is probably out of step with what a lot of
artists are doing in 2003, which is telling stories or conveying
specific kinds of information, be it sociological information,
multimedia
psychological information, sexual information. Work that is
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VIDEO: Woodworking Studio
VIDEO: “Ladder for Booker T...”
VIDEO: Carving Stone in China
VIDEO: Stone Architectural Folly
SLIDESHOW: Artwork Survey
SLIDESHOW: Artist at Work
INTERACTIVE: Artist’s Links
really a vehicle for conveying kinds of information. I came from
a generation where the work was itself the information and so
there remains this belief that the work itself can have an
identity that can hopefully speak. Whether it's through beauty
or through ugliness or whatever quality you put into the work.
That is what the work can be about.
The work doesn't have to be a transparent vehicle for you to
in the series
say things about life today or what you see people doing to
Season 2 (2003)
Episode: “Time”
Home Video (DVD)
each other or things like that. Not that that's not in the work
Companion Book
presentation of the work itself and what went into the making
for educators
Online Lesson Library
http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/puryear/clip2.html
ever, because I think the work can contain a lot of things, but
my vehicle typically is to make work that is about the
of the work as an object. And there's a story in the making of
objects. There's a narrative in the fabrication of things, which to
Art21 . Martin Puryear . Interview & Videos | PBS
Online Lesson Library
Educators' Guide
Learn (art21.org)
me is fascinating. Not as fascinating perhaps as the final form
or the final object itself, but I think by working incrementally
there's a built in story in the making of things which I think can
be interesting.
going further
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ART:21:
Do you think abstraction, or the kind of work you are
describing, will continue on?
PURYEAR:
I think it probably will. Who can tell the future? But I remember
a show that must have been in the late ’50s or early ’60s about
realism at the Museum of Modern Art. And there was an awful
lot written about the end of realism. The fact that realism as a
way of making art was on its way out. And realism is alive and
reddit
well today. It has come back and completely transmogrified to
do very different kind of things for the artist than it did in 1960
or 1970—very different kind of things. But, as a practice, it's
still very much with us. The camera didn't wipe it out.
Abstraction didn't wipe it out. And I think there are abstract
tendencies in art that certainly predate the 20th century. So I
think that isn't going to go away.
"I came from a
generation where the
work was itself the
information and so
there remains this
belief that the work
itself can have an
identity that can
hopefully speak."
ART:21:
Do you think it's important to make abstract works today? Is it
important to make a case for abstraction in art?
PURYEAR:
I think there are different degrees of stridency with each artist,
depending upon who they are. And I think in my case, I'm
making a case for my own vision. It's like breathing. It's not
always the same. And it can change. It can actually move in a
direction that has got some representational tendencies. Or at
least some allusive tendencies. Or some kind of tendencies that
are very suggestive. I mean, my work is not Minimalist. The
kind of abstraction I practice is probably an earlier kind of
abstraction where I'm not committed to simply presenting a
form that has to be addressed only on the terms that I say if it
can be addressed at—which is I think what minimalists are.
They really were interested in shutting down any other
alternative ways of looking at the work other than to take the
work on the terms that they set. It's a very idealized way to
look at work, with very, very, very narrow parameters. And I
think in my work it feels like it's got a lot more potential for
evolution and change and open-endedness. Which I think feels
more resonant with what it is to live a life.
ART:21:
What's the genesis for the ladder piece, "Ladder for Booker T.
Washington"? That work is perhaps the most representational
piece of yours from the past decade.
PURYEAR:
The title came after the work was finished, first of all. I didn't
set out to make a work about Booker T. Washington. The title
was very much a second stage in the whole evolution of the
work. The work was really about using the sapling, using the
tree. And making a work that had a kind of artificial
perspective, a forced perspective, an exaggerated perspective
"...I'm making a case
for my own vision.
http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/puryear/clip2.html
that made it appear to recede into space faster than in fact it
does. That really was what the work was about for me, this kind
Art21 . Martin Puryear . Interview & Videos | PBS
for my own vision.
It's like breathing.
It's not always the
same. And it can
change. It can
actually move in a
direction that has got
some
representational
tendencies."
of artificial perspective. It's an idea I've been wanting to do for
a long time. And it requires a certain actual length. It's a piece
that couldn't have been done small. As it was, it was thirty-six
feet long. I actually had a version of a piece like this that I had
conceived to go into a public space in Tokyo, which would have
been close to two hundred and fifty feet long. This was
extremely exciting to me, because then the work would have
been long enough where you could actually wonder whether the
perspective that you were looking at was in fact manipulated or
whether it was real. And that prospect to me was extremely
interesting. To be able to make the piece to such an extent,
make it long enough, that you would have a confusion as to
whether this is the artist's manipulation of reality or whether
this is in fact what is really going on here. It didn’t happen. But
anyway, this piece was realized to work with that same idea—
the idea of a forced perspective.
ART:21:
PURYEAR:
Does it still have some sense of that forced perspective?
Oh yes. Anyone looking at it knows that the tip of it is not as far
away as the artist is telling you it could be. This is not a new
device. It was used in the Renaissance a lot. You see it in
garden design and you see it in trellis design and other
artificially diminishing forms in space. But then there was the
whole relationship, literally, to ladders. I mean, it is a ladder.
It's made like a ladder. It's made like country ladders you see
in places. People would cut a tree trunk in half and put rungs
between the two halves. And that’s a ladder.
ART:21:
PURYEAR:
Is there something about this piece that amuses you?
Well, I enjoyed doing it. And I certainly enjoy the way it looks
at The Modern in Fort Worth. It's interesting to me—and this is
new for me—but the work does contain a history lesson
because people who see it want to know what it's about. It's a
curiosity when they see a title as specific as that. It's been
"The work was really
about using the
sapling, using the
tree. And making a
work that had a kind
of artificial
perspective, a forced
perspective..."
written about a couple of times. In fact, there's a wall label in
the museum that talks about Booker T. Washington more than
it talks about the work, which I find interesting. I think there's a
lot going on in the work as a sculpture. But I think the urgency
of the historical information about Booker T. Washington is in
terms of what the museum thinks the public would want to
know, or should know about it. And I think, in this case,
eclipses what's going on within the object. I found that kind of
interesting.
ART:21:
PURYEAR:
As a sculptural form it's very unusual?
For me it is. I'm not the first person to use a ladder, I'm sure,
in sculpture. But I don't know if it's unusual or not. This is the
first time I've ever seen a person make a work like this. It's the
idea of a diminution in space and the manipulation of that
perception which is interesting to me. Certainly as a
woodworker it was an interesting project to work on. It was a
challenge to split a tree, a thirty-six foot long tree. That's part
http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/puryear/clip2.html
Art21 . Martin Puryear . Interview & Videos | PBS
of my pleasure in the making of it, which isn't what's left for the
viewer to look at. That's just my end of it. My end of the
making of it.
ART:21:
So what do you think is the connection between what's going
on in the work and the title of the piece?
PURYEAR:
I mentioned about the perspective being really what the work is
about. And the idea of Booker T. Washington, the resonance
with his life, and his struggle...the whole notion that his idea of
progress for the race was a long slow progression of, as he
"...The idea of Booker
T. Washington, the
resonance with his
life, and his
struggle...the whole
notion that his idea of
progress for the race
was a long slow
progression..."
said, "Putting your buckets down where you are and working
with what you've got." And the antithesis was W.B. DuBois who
was a much more radical thinker and who had a much more
pro-active way of thinking about racial struggle for equality.
And Booker T. Washington was someone who made enormous
contacts with people in power and had enormous influence, but
he was what you would call a gradualist. And so, it really is a
question of the view from where you start and the end—the
goal. This is something I don't really want to elaborate on too
much because I think it's in the work. The whole notion of
where you start and where you want to get to and how far
away it really is. And if it's possible to get there given the
circumstances that you're operating within.
The joining of that idea of Booker T. Washington and his notion
of progress and the form of that piece—that came after the
fact. But when I thought about a title for it, it just seemed
absolutely fitting.
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National Gallery of Art - Martin Puryear
10/24/11 4:34 PM
This exhibition is no longer on view at the National Gallery. Please follow the links below
for related online resources or visit our current exhibitions schedule.
A native Washingtonian who has achieved
international acclaim, Martin Puryear (b.
1941) has created a distinctive body of
sculpture that defies categorization.
Serenely quiet and poetic, his work
explores natural forms and materials,
especially a wide variety of woods, and it
engages issues of history, culture, and
identity. In the first American retrospective
of the artist's work in more than 15 years,
some 48 objects created between 1976 and 2007 reflect the integration
of concepts of minimalism.
Related Resources
EXHIBITION FEATURE
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Organization: Organized by The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Sponsor: The exhibition is sponsored by The Exhibition Circle of the
National Gallery of Art.
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Generous support is also provided by Glenstone.
Additional support is provided by Lannan Foundation.
Schedule: The Museum of Modern Art, New York, November 4, 2007–
January 14, 2008; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, February 24–May
18, 2008; National Gallery of Art, June 22–September 28, 2008; San
Francisco Museum of Modern Art, November 8, 2008–January 25, 2009
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